


I Saw Your Eyes

by impossibleamypond



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
Genre: Establishing Trust, Friendship, Gen, Stormpilot, finding common ground, slow build friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5640265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibleamypond/pseuds/impossibleamypond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting caught eavesdropping on a personal moment isn’t something she’s ever really experienced before and she’s glad for it - this is the most uncomfortable she’s ever been in her entire life, and she’d been interrogated by Kylo Ren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know that Poe and Rey share a hug in the novelization and are introduced to each other that way, but we're just going to completely disregard that! Enjoy!

When Rey comes back to Finn’s bedside, a small cup of water grasped loosely between her fingers and her freshly washed hair clinging to the back of her neck in thick, wet strands, she’s surprised to find that her chair has been taken. 

In it sits a broad shouldered man with a head of thick, dark hair, which is messy and jutting out in all directions, like fingers have raked through the locks in frustration many a times that day. At his waist hangs the top portion of his garishly orange flight suit, the sleeves tied about his waist and a grey, grease-stained tank top stretched across his back. The faint scent of motor oil and sweat lingers in the air. 

Over the steady beeping of the numerous monitors hooked up to her friend’s healing pod, she can hear the man muttering something to Finn, and though she can’t hear exactly what’s being said, she can tell by the warmth of the few words she manages to pick up and the fact that he’s practically whispering to Finn that it’s personal. 

A faint flush spreads across her face as she watches the incredibly tender - and extremely private and personal - scene unfold from the doorway. To linger would be rude and intrusive, so Rey takes a step back, fully intent on leaving as quietly as she can, but BB-8 spots her just as she’s about to make her retreat.

Trilling loudly, the droid spins forward to greet her, chirping merrily as he rolls back and forth in front of her, making any attempt at a quick exit impossible. The pilot - who Rey now realizes is none other than Poe Dameron, best damn pilot in the whole Resistance - turns abruptly in his seat to stare at her. 

Her flush deepens under the heat of his stare, the weight of it. He’s not _glaring_ at her - no, he’s studying her, his dark eyes taking her in. Almost immediately, she’s struck by the intensity of his gaze, the degree of curiosity burning in his brown eyes. 

“Sorry,” she blurts, doing her best to keep her voice from cracking in embarrassment. Getting caught eavesdropping on a personal moment isn’t something she’s ever really experienced before and she’s glad for it - this is the most uncomfortable she’s ever been in her entire life, and she’d been interrogated by Kylo Ren. 

He doesn’t respond, just continues to study her, a faint twinkle in his eyes that she can’t name because she doesn’t know this man. He’s a stranger to her, even if he meant the world to Finn. 

The thought makes her heart hammer thick against her rib cage, almost like a pang. Rey pushes the feeling aside and swallows the lump in her throat. 

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she adds, tucking a lock of damp hair behind her ear. She wishes he would say something to alleviate the tension in the air - tension that BB-8 is completely immune to as he keeps beeping and trilling and warbling at her feet, doing his best to get her attention. 

He doesn’t look away from her, not once. Even as she tries to shy away from the overly excited astromech droid, he only blinks at her, the tips of his long lashes brushing the curve of his cheekbone. 

The only other person who has ever looked at her like that is lying motionless on a cot, one of his hands curiously close to the edge of the bed, fingers slightly curved, almost crooked, as if someone had just been holding it. 

Rey tears her gaze away and clears her throat, feeling her embarrassment (and the beginnings of another emotion prickling at her skin) all throughout her body. 

“Right,” she mutters, licking her lips. How can she stare down a Sith Lord in the middle of an interrogation and _win_ yet she can barely look this man - the man responsible for bringing Finn into her life, the man responsible for giving her the one thing she’s always craved, an escape from the overwhelming loneliness that’d filled every chasm in her body, every little dark part of her that’d once been so full of life - without wanting to sink into the floor?

“I’ll just come back later then.”

Pivoting on her heel, she places her palm on the scanner, eager to make her exit from the awkwardness of their encounter, BB-8 prevents her from leaving once more, protesting her departure in a series of increasingly pathetic pleas. Despite herself, she smiles at the droid and prepares to shoot his insistence down as politely as she can, but the pilot speaks up for the first time, startling Rey with the amount of warmth and sincerity in his voice. 

“So _you’re_ Rey,” he says with an unmistakable note of awe in his words. An awe that is reflected in the bright spark in his deep gaze. 

Then he smiles, a swift flash of teeth and charm and warmth, and if she wasn’t already leaning against the wall, she would have stumbled back into it, taken aback by the force and the brilliance of his grin. It makes her breath hitch in her throat, which restricts as flashes of Finn’s broad, genuine grin fill her mind. She pushes back the tears that prickle at the backs of her eyes, unwilling to cry in front of a stranger, even if he cared about Finn at least as much, if not more, than she did. 

With quicker movements than she anticipates, Poe gets to his feet, crosses the room in two long strides, and reaches for her hand, grasping it within her own much larger, calloused hands. Now that he’s so close to her, she gets a whiff of oil and a hard day’s work, and it’s a pleasant smell, just like the smile on his face is pleasant and the warmth of his hands on hers is pleasant. 

“BB-8 told me everything - how you rescued him from the tech poacher, how you did everything in your power to get him back to the Resistance - back to me, really.” He looks down at the droid, his eyes shining with a fondness so raw, it takes her aback, just like everything about him. Her mind flashes to the array of stars streaming by the _Falcon’s_ windows as they made the jump to lightspeed; he’s brilliant and overwhelming, the kind of thing that takes your breath away and gives it back before you realize it’s been stolen. 

No wonder why Finn took to him so quickly. 

The hand holding hers tightens and he adds, in a much lower, rawer voice, “How you saved Finn.”

They lock eyes then and Rey is surprised to find her hand closing more tightly around his, absorbing the warmth he exudes and taking it into herself. Clinging to it. 

It takes longer than she wants to talk around the lump in her throat, but when she manages, her words are ones of quiet gratitude. “He saved me, too, you know.”

An intense silence passes between them and with it comes an understanding that without the boy in the healing pod, fighting for his life beneath closed eyelids and a stone face, which is _so_ unlike the expressive vibrancy of his countenance that it makes her heart beat thickly, almost painfully, in her chest - it makes them realize that without him, they would not be here. They couldn’t have done the things they’ve done - save the galaxy from the sheer might and terror of the Starkiller base, defeat Kylo Ren and sending him running back to his master with his tail between his legs, gotten home _alive_ \- if Finn’s heart and spirit weren’t as pure and solid and _good_ as they are. 

As _he_ is. 

“He saved us both,” murmurs Poe, giving her fingers one last squeeze before dropping them.

She’s thankful when Poe releases her hand, though she wishes he’d stop looking at her like that: like she’s a sun around which the whole galaxy spins instead of a sad, lonely orphan. 

“So,” says Poe, his words colored with mischief as he folds his arms over his chest and regards her, an eyebrow raised all the while. “Finn told me you’re one hell of a pilot…”


	2. Chapter Two

Since the discovery of the rest of the map, the urgency to get to Luke Skywalker is more pressing than ever. Though no one tells her outright that she’s the only one who can complete the task, Rey accepts it nonetheless, all too aware of the gravity of her duty. Without Luke, the Resistance has no hope of overthrowing the First Order. Without Luke, they can’t defeat the Supreme Leader. Without Luke, there is no hope. If she can’t persuade him to come home, if she fails _again_ …

Well, she _can’t_ fail. 

And yet…

It’s been a little over two weeks since the destruction of the Starkiller base, and she still can’t bring herself to step aboard the _Millennium Falcon_ to assess the damage and begin repairs, even though she knows she needs to. To put it simply, it’s too painful. The wound is too raw, too fresh. She’s tried to ignore it, to put it from her mind and get on with her life, but every morning she wakes gasping, all too aware of the echoes of pain coursing through her body, through her mind. She _felt_ him die, felt his soul being ripped from the universe and flung into the dark reaches of beyond. Felt the gaping maw of agony and despair left behind in his wake.

She may have only known Han Solo for a handful of days, but he made an impact upon her. Just like Finn made an impact on her. Now one of them is still in a medically induced coma and the other…

Rey is familiar with the ache of loneliness and knows all too well what it feels like to be abandoned, but she’s never known true loss before Han was murdered by his son. In the days that followed his death, she felt a numbing coldness all over her body. She felt helpless, hopeless, even, like nothing in the whole of the galaxy would ever bring warmth or comfort to her again.

There’s a hole in the center of her chest, a gaping wound that is still festering just as her guilt festers in her mind, day in and day out. If only she’d been stronger in her abilities, if only she’d been brave enough to leap from the balcony and stand between Han and his son, she could have saved him - or at least _tried_ to save him instead of standing idly by, tears streaming down her face, as his son ran him through. 

Despite herself, Rey gasps, closing her eyes against the onslaught of images leading up to Han falling, almost in slow motion, into oblivion. 

She knows it’s not her fault, not truly. There’s nothing she could have done to prevent him from dying, from giving his life to save his son’s soul and yet...it’s hard to forgive herself. 

Harder still is trying to gather the courage to lower the ramp and climb aboard the ship. It feels...wrong. Almost like she’s trespassing on hallowed ground. His footsteps echo throughout the vessel, his fingerprints are all over the controls. These little reminders, these small parts of Han, are the only physical thing that’s left of him and Rey can’t ruin that. 

She can’t be responsible for their erasure as well.

But the repairs _need_ to be done so she can get along with her mission. General Organa has been incredibly lenient with her, too understanding of the grief she feels and the burden of responsibility that has been settled upon her shoulders. Never has Leia made Rey feel as if she’s somehow failing the Resistance in her hesitancy to fix the _Falcon_. Never has Leia made Rey feel guilty or somehow responsible for what happened to her husband. If anything, Leia absolved her of any and all blame the moment she swept Rey into her arms and held her as she’d never been held by another person in all of her life: how a mother comforts a child. 

Rey sighs and tilts her head back, her eyes still closed, and counts to five. That’s how long she’ll let the guilt simmer, how long she’ll let the ache permeate her chest. Five seconds to feel the full force of everything. Loss, guilt, hurt, uncertainty, regret, it washes over her in a tsunami, fast and overwhelming and just when she feels like she’s drowning, like she can't take another breath without her lungs filling up with the despair that she feels, it stops.

On five, Rey exhales and opens her eyes, aware of just how sweaty her hands are. She drags her palms across her pants and stoops to pick up the small toolbox at her feet. 

\---

Two hours later, she’s covered in grease and sweat and Force only knows what else, she’s cursed more times (and in more languages) than is probably proper for a young lady, and has received from electrical shocks than she has fingers and toes, but she feels _better_. 

On Jakku, her work was the only thing she had to keep her mind from the desolation of her situation, of the loneliness she felt, so it only makes sense that scrubbing away the carbon scoring on the shield deflectors would take her mind off everything else. It only makes sense that going back to what she knows best - taking old, broken things and making them new again - is what helps her feel most like herself. 

A broad smile touches the corner of her lips as the navi-computer flickers to life, awaiting the input a fresh set of coordinates. _Soon_ , she thinks as she runs her fingers over the screen to clear away a layer of dust. Soon her fingers will dash across the keypad, setting her on a course straight through the stars to Luke Skywalker. For the first time, she feels a thrill of excitement somewhere in the pit of her stomach. The thought of tracking down the lost Jedi Master and finally bringing him home is still incredibly intimidating, but her faith in herself has been renewed. If she can fix the hyperdrive _and_ the navi-computer on this beloved bucket of bolts, what was a Jedi Master to her? 

Eager to begin work on the next repair, Rey leaps up from her seat, exits the cockpit, and marches down the ramp to start on the exterior repairs, of which there are many. Large pieces of shrapnel are embedded all over the ship: the hull, the keel, the bow, the stern - there’s not a single part of the vessel that hasn’t been damaged from the explosion of the Starkiller base. It’s not going to be easy work, not by a long shot, but she’ll get as much of it done as she can before the day is done. 

With ease, she scales the side of the _Falcon_ , grateful for her time scavenging for parts from the various wreckage on Jakku. From technological know-how to hand-eye coordination skills to flying, there’s little that she can’t do when it comes to ships and she can’t help feeling more than a little accomplished when she makes it all the way to the top of the vessel with hardly a scratch on her; one jagged piece of shrapnel ripped her pants and tore at her skin, but other than that, she’s fine. 

Content, even. It's quiet up here, but she can still hear the buzzes of life beneath her. The world hasn't melted away; it's still there and she's still a part of it, just away from all of the hustle and bustle that gives her a fair amount of anxiety, especially with the way they look at her. Stories have been spreading around the Resistance about her involvement in the destruction of the Starkiller base, and while most of what is being said is true, it doesn't mean she wants to be gawked at. She didn't ask to be a hero, she just did what needed to be done.

But she doesn't have to worry about that while she's up here as she has plenty of work set out for her. So she stretches her arms over her head, pulling out the knots of tension in her shoulders and lower back, and cranes her neck to find the best place to start. It's only then that she realizes that she’s left all of her tools on the ground right next to several crates of cargo waiting to be hauled into the ship’s hold, and she'll have to climb back down to get them.

Her sigh is long and frustrated and if she could kick something, she would. Instead, she buries her face in her hands and cries, “Shit!” through her fingers. It's not the end of the world, but it's an annoyance she hadn't been planning on.

A beat passes before someone calls out from somewhere down below, “Need some help?”

Rey freezes at the sound and drops her hands back down to her sides. The D’Qar base may be small in comparison to the might of the First Order, but all of the people to find her stranded atop the _Falcon_ , why did it have to be him? After getting over the initial awkwardness of their first encounter, they’d fallen into an easy conversation about various models of fighters and Poe had just begun to tell her, in a very excited tone, about his and Finn’s escape in the TIE fighter when the nurse had come in and shooed them both out of the room. They’d hovered in the hall for a handful of seconds, grasping desperately for the threads of their previous (and pleasant) conversation and failing miserably before someone called Poe away. 

That was three days ago. She hadn't seen him or spoken to him since.

Expelling another sigh, she scoots as close to the edge as she dares and peers down. 

Poe Dameron’s grin is so wide, it’s probably visible from space, and she can’t help but roll her eyes at him. As always, BB-8 is at the pilot’s side, chirping merrily at the sight of her. After waving at the droid, who spins an excited circle around his master’s feet, she turns her attention back to Poe. 

“No, I’m okay.”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “You sure? It’s my experience that someone who curses after climbing up something of considerable size is not usually fine.”

“Very funny.” Rey scowls at him; he grins again in response. If she had something with her, she’d chuck it at him, if only to wipe that look off his face. With a sigh, she says, “I forgot my tools. They’re right there.” She points to the box a few feet to his left and watches as BB-8 rolls over to it, trilling happily. 

Poe goes over to the toolbox and toes it with his boot then squints back up at her. “So are you coming down here or am I coming up there?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Either you climb back down to get ‘em or I’m coming up there with ‘em. It’s your choice.” 

Yet somehow she feels he’s already made the decision for her as he strips off his jacket (another leather one, this time a dark grey, with a shiny new set of rank pins gleaming on the breast) and tosses it on one of the many crates stacked outside of the _Falcon’s_ cargo hold. He takes a step back to discern the best path up to the top, his dark eyes narrowed and the furrow in his prominent brow deep. 

“Try over there,” Rey suggests, pointing to the side of the ship. “There’s better footholds on the port side. There _should_ be a ladder somewhere on this blasted thing, but it likely fell off ages ago.” She eyes a bent antenna skeptically, wondering what daring maneuver is responsible for its absence. “Just like everything else on this ship.”

Poe’s laugh is rich and warm and pleasant - and much closer than she expects. Just a few seconds later, his mop of dark curls appears in the corner of her eye and then he’s up and over the side, hauling the toolbox with him and setting it in front of him. His dexterity shouldn’t come as a surprise to her; he _is_ the best damn pilot in the whole Resistance and he wouldn’t have gotten that reputation if he didn’t have excellent coordination and agility. 

“Don’t let Chewie hear that,” Poe jokes as he tugs at the hem of his tee shirt. There’s a flush high in his cheeks and a glimmer in his eyes that makes something flutter in the pit of her stomach. She doesn’t know what to make of _that_ , so she says nothing as he draws closer to her, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Rey wonders if he ever gets tired of smiling. “Word on the street is that it’s not wise to upset a Wookiee.”

“Yeah, well, I think it’ll take more than just a few snide comments to make him angry at the moment. He disappeared shortly after we landed and I haven’t seen him since.” There’s an edge to her words and she’s surprised by how abrasive it feels against her tongue. She doesn’t like the sound of it and lowers her head to stare at her hands, ashamed of herself. She has no right to be angry at Chewbacca; she may have lost a mentor, but Chewie lost his partner, his captain, his best friend. 

His brother. 

Rey swallows thickly, glancing at Poe from beneath her eyelashes. 

His expression is one of understanding, the usually strong, tough lines of his jaw softened by the sympathetic turn of his mouth. “We’ve all lost people dear to us in this war - and we’ve all got our own ways of dealing with it. Some people need to be alone, other people need constant company. I once knew a guy who ran laps after a particularly nasty dog fight, our losses were so bad.” He shrugs and smiles at her, though it’s not his typical fast and loose grin. It's softer. Gentler. She likes it a lot better. “But you? I think you’re like me.”

If they’re so alike, she wonders if he’s thinking of all the people he’s lost, if he sees their faces behind his eyelids every time he closes them, too. She doesn’t ask him, though, because that’s just a little too much too soon. 

Instead her expression turns rueful as she regards him, taking in the subtle tilt of his head and the hunch of his shoulders. “Oh, really?” she asks, arching an eyebrow. “And what does that mean?”

“It means you like to fix things.” With the toe of his boot, he nudges the bent antenna she’d been eyeing before. “Physical, practical things like wonky hyperdrives or broken communication dishes.” He looks directly into her eyes as he speaks, and she spots the same haunted look that’s been reflected back at her for the last two weeks; it’s a look of regret and hurt and of endless, endless guilt. 

His lips twist into a wry smile. “You fix ‘em because they make sense and your emotions don’t.”

Poe’s face swims before her as her eyes flood with unbidden tears and quick as she can, she pulls her gaze from his and turns away, making a show of inspecting the exterior plating of the ship. She didn't anticipate a heart-to-heart with a damn near stranger, much less one that makes her feel dizzy and queasy and oddly relieved all at the same time. So she needs a moment to collect herself, to get her thoughts in order and her feelings in check so that they might actually fix something instead of standing there talking about it. 

A rush of gratitude settles over her as she hears him moving around somewhere over her shoulder. Hears the squeak of the toolbox lid and the rattle of metal as the tools inside are pushed around. She clears her throat loudly and turns back to face him. “I, uh, think we should start here,” she says, crouching down next to a rather large gash in the metal, which has been melted away, most likely by the heat of the explosion. Coils of wiring and trails of tubing are charred in some places, melted in others. There's a nasty rupture in one of the tubes that's leaking a bright orange liquid.

Poe’s knees crack as he lowers himself to her level, his presence warm and solid next to her. “Looks like there might be some damage to the cooling system,” he says, indicating a tear in one of the thicker tubes. His shoulder brushes hers as he moves. “Want me to pop down in the hull and take a look?”

“Yeah,” Rey says, a small smile touching her lips as she nods her head. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

Poe grins back at her and opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, she continues, “Or I could go beneath as I’m smaller and fit into tighter spaces. But if you want to try and squeeze those burly shoulders through the compartments, be my guest. I pulled some clumps of fur from the metal grating the last time I was down there and when I showed them to Chewie, he threw a fit. Apparently, it's quite painful and you wouldn't want to mess up your hair, would you?”

The smile frozen on his face, Poe blinks at her, clearly taken aback by the teasing tone of her voice. He's looking at her the way she'd look at the Rathtar's on Han's smuggling ship. Quite honestly, Rey is surprised with herself; she’s never had the opportunity to _tease_ someone before and she’s got to say, she enjoys it. 

“ _Burly_ shoulders? You think my shoulders are _burly_?”

“Well, I _was_ going to say hulking -”

“ _Hulking!_ ” he exclaims, his eyes wide and horrified. “I don’t have hulking shoulders. I don’t! And I’ll have you know…”

Whatever it is she needs to know, it can hardly be discerned through all of the deep bellied laughter that drifts through the open-air hangar and brings a smile to the faces of those passing by. 

The repairs to the _Millennium Falcon_ will get done. 

Eventually.


End file.
